Texas Library Association Conference!

Cyn and I are back from and exhilarating and exhausting few days at TLA in San Antonio. There was more rain than I'd ever seen in San Antonio, which was slightly surreal, but everyone kept their sense of humor about it :-). Cyn was on a panel and had a signing, while I went in a purely supernumerary capacity.

We drove down on Thursday afternoon, checked into our hotel, and headed out to the conference center. The first people we ran into were Pat Mora and Loriene Roy.


We arrived just in time for the Delacortesians' (Shana Burg, Margo Rabb, Varian Johnson, and April Lurie) signings. We also caught ran into Chris Barton, Liz Garton Scanlon, and Tim Tingle, and had a good chat with Peni Griffin and the others manning the SCBWI booth.

Below, Jerry Wermund poses with his latest:


Texas Sweethearts Jessica Lee Anderson, P.J. Hoover, and Jo Whittemore were there in all their glory:

Teri Lesesne and Lois Buckman:

At the joint publisher party, we ran into more old and new friends and met among others, Jenni Holm's bairn, visited with Mark Mitchell and Debbie Gonzales.

Jarrett Krosoczka and Jennifer Ziegler:

Junko Yokota and Kimberly Willis Holt:

Afterward, Candlewick (i.e., Sharon and Jenny) took Cyn and me, Marc Aronson, Kelly Bennett, Matt Tavares, and a host of Texas library luminaries, to dinner at the Fig Leaf.

Next day we hit the conference floor again and caught Kathleen Duey and Jenny Ziegler signing; Victoria Stapleton deftly handed over a copy of Gail Giles's forthcoming DARK SONG; and I nabbed an arc of K.A. Holt's forthcoming BRAINS FOR LUNCH (a zombie novel in haiku).

Debbie Leland poses with the arc of Holler Loudly:

Cyn did a teen book chat while Brian Yansky signed arcs of the terrific ALIEN INVASION AND OTHER INCONVENIENCES at the Candlewick booth. Then we were off to Cyn's panel on "A Conversation Between Books and Technology" with Jay Asher, Cory Doctorow, Maureen Johnson, and Jude Watson. The room was packed and the panelists were funny and informative.

Below, April Lurie, Frances Hill Yansky, and Brian Yansky pose.

We finished up the conference the next day with Teri Lesesne and Rosemary Chance book-talking some YA and tween titles.

And for reasons I don't understand, Clifford the Big Red Dog now walks upright.